Kazimierz Dziewoński

Articles

The present discourse demonstrates the thoughts related to the possibilities and consequences of an adaptation for the geographic settlement systems research of the methodological approaches and concepts taken from natural sciences, especially the concept of deterministic chaos along with the concept and measures of entropy.

The following report is based on three analytical studies: a monograph by A. Gawryszew-ski on spatial population mobility in Poland in 1952-1985, and two papers of my own on inter-regional migrations in 1975/76 and in 1985. All these studies are based on the available official statistics — the latter two on matrices of inter-regional permanent migration between 49 voivodships. The matrix for 1985 was additionally disaggregated into four basic directional categories: rural to rural, rural to urban, urban to rural, and urban to urban.The data available on permanent migration are rather reliable, with only rare, temporary and regional deformations. The emerging pattern is clear and consistent. The data on other types of migrational movements are uneven and in some cases, such as recreational mobility, partial, scanty and even incidental. The present report is, therefore, limited to comments on permanent migration, involving a change in domicile only.

To avoid misunderstanding a short review of the most important concepts and terms to be used in the following comments seems to be necessary. They are: spatial economy and system of spatial economy, spatial policies, goals and instruments of such policies, among them spatial planning, as well as geographical space, whose elements and structures are objects in spatial policies and planning.The term "spatial economy" in its wider usage describes the whole sphere of practical human activities in which the heterogeneous character of geographical space and/or the overcoming of physical distance play consciously or unconsciously a sig-nificant role in making and implementing involved decisions. However its meaning may be considerably narrowed by identifying such activities with those of social character only. The concept and term are then limited to "social spatial economy" which obviously is only one part or at best one aspect of the whole national economy. The "system of spatial economy" forms therefore only one subsystem within the system of national economy, which is based in its actual status on the binding laws and bye-laws in addition to the culture, customs and traditions of the given country.The state authorities within the system of spatial economy develop "spatial policies", implementing specific goals. Identification of the character and role of such goals in spatial policies is of great importance and significance for the understanding of the basic problems of spatial economy and policies.Usually the primary goal of spatial policies is defined as the maximization (or optimization) ol space utilization, specifically land utilization (with natural resources included) for satisfying the needs of society/national community and its members, without destruction of stability and balance in the environment, especially in the natural environment. However in the deeper analysis the varying and changing character of social needs has to be taken into account. As a result, transformation taking place in the effective use of space and in the environmental equilibrium has to be recognized. A goal or goals understood in this way have therefore to be defined each time in detailed form, and with the passage of time this process leads to considerable variation in those goals. Hence the need for the formulation of goals which may be achieved in the given economic, social and political conditions in addition to being achieved in a com-paratively short period of time.One of the reasons behind the mistakes and disappointments in spatial policies may be found in the numerous conflicts in the dichotomy existing between variation in time of the goals and the stability of geographic space, i.e. the material (physical) environment which if even changing (and in the policies such changes may be intended) is, with exception of environmental catastrophes, changing extremely slowly. As a result, the material environment usually contains patterns from past policies, and current spatial policies strive after its transformation according to current and future needs. Here another conflict is born: one between satisfying the needs of the present population and providing reserves for future generations.

Very early in the first post-war years a specific polarization of studies in settlement geography and in particular in urban geography has taken place. One, well pronounced approach was to study — on the basis of population and economic phenomena — the functional problems of settlement and urban development; and the other, much better rooted in traditional research, but much weaker in its intensity, was concerned with the morphology of settlement as expressed among others by types of land and building utilization and their distributions. This polarization may also be defined as the study of human contents and material forms of settlement.

The inspiration for both approaches came originally from the physical planning authorities and offices. The functional approach evolved out of the needs of planning at the national and regional levels for more definite and precise projections of future growth, short- and long-term tendencies in population changes in individual cities. The morphological one has been derived out of efforts to identify various zones of land utilization and to define building regulations in city planning. With most economic planning aiming at the rapid and forced industrialization of the whole country, the functional approach seemed and in fact was of the greater importance and in the period of the last thirty years of evolution reached an undoubted state of maturity with a large number of defined and developed basic concepts, some fully fledged theories, and subtle and complex analytical methods based and derived from detailed topical studies. On the other hand morphological research although never completely discarded has been unable to develop wider generalizations or truly theoretical ideas and views. In this paper therefore the whole presentation follows systematically the achievements and changes of the functional research with only incidental references to the more important of the morphological studies as they have occurred through time.

The purpose of the following remarks is to present and explain specificcharacteristics and regional differentiation of the rural landscape in Poland oftoday. It is rather complex and spatially extremely variable with several layersof completely different forms, types and patterns superimposed one on another.Their origin and dating is rather difficult to identify and their morphology issometimes very misleading with older forms transformed more or less or notat all by the successive social, economic and political upheavals — revolutions ormerely reforms, specially the agrarian ones. By queer paradox the greatestchanges have taken place there where at present the agriculture is the mostbackward and underdeveloped. In search of the historical relicts it is necessaryto turn to more advanced and progressive agricultural regions and the foreseeableand planned changes probably shall make this pattern and trends evenmore deeply implanted in the morphology of the rural landscape.

The organization of research for physical planning in Poland has had a long tradition reaching back to the inter-war period of later twenties. However, its full development has taken place only after the war. In the last thirty years in Poland such applied research has played an important role in the progress of physical planning on all three basic, i.e.: national, regional and local levels, as well as in the development of various sciences, in particular: of geography. Nevertheless, the subject and the scope of such research were constantly chang-ing. Such changes were connected on one hand with the arising needs of plan-ning and planners, and on the other with readiness and possibilities of undertak-ing the proposed themes by scientific institutions and scientists. Their effec-tiveness was always rather closely connected with organizational forms prevail-ing at the given moment and current methodology of scientific research plan-ning. For these reasons a more detailed description of research carried out in these years, its character and achievements to be presented here should be di-vided into several parts, each connected with successive stages in organizational transformations of physical planning and scientific research. The following pha-ses shall be taken into account: years 1944-1953, the time when the integrated institutions of physical planning were organized, and when their relations to the institutions of economic planning were defined and developed, and when the research institutions at the universities were being reestablished after war de-struction; years 1954-1958, when the national and regional planning was inclu-ded in the long-term or "perspective" economic planning and the central re-search institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences were founded; years 1959-1970, when the long-term research was organized and coordinated by the Com-mittee for Space Economy and Regional Planning of the Polish Academy of Sciences; and, finally years since 1971 when the first draft of the national plan for physical development till 1990 was being prepared and most of the research studies were concentrated within the framework of a very ambitious programme of the so-called "nodal" problem: scientific bases for the physical development of the country. To introduce the whole process a short information en the re-search carried out earlier, in the thirties, i.e., before the Second World War is given. Without this information the post-war situation cannot be understood fully.